Decorating Disaster
by Romyvdh and Dionnevdv
Summary: A story about Cal Price, Orion and Christmas.


Cal Price, the cutest boy in the whole school, is standing in front of me and trying to get me to help him with decorating the school for Christmas. He is always in charge of these kind of things, just because he is the only one who volunteers. The only reason he wants me to help him is because I am tall, and not because he figured out that I like him.

'Well, are you going to help me or not?' he asks, kind of grumpy. Obviously I'm not his first choice, what a way to make me feel special.

'Eh, I'll help you,' I say, trying to sound careless, as if his presence doesn't make me nervous. Unfortunately, I fail miserably and my face immediately turns red.

'Thank you so much,' he says, a huge smile appearing on his face. 'Can you come to the music room during lunch, so we can discuss how we're going to do this?'

I nod, not trusting my voice any longer. After thanking me he returns to his friends and starts talking to them, as if our conversation never happened.

Because eventually, it wasn't important to him anyway.

….

As soon as the bell rings, which tells me lunch break has started, I rush out of the classroom and make my way to the music room. I usually just spend my lunch break eating my food on the ground by my locker, even though we're not allowed to be in the hallway 5 minutes after break has started. I don't care, teachers never check the hallways and even if they do, I make up an excuse and wait for them to disappear again. I don't have friends to spend my time with anyway.

'Orion White, I'm glad you made it.' I look around and see Cal walking in my direction. He has a smile on his face, in contrast to this morning. I suppose that he is really glad that I'm helping him.

'Cal Price,' I say while trying to make my voice sound normal, instead of an octave higher, which happens when I'm nervous. 'Of course I'm here, I told you I'd be.'

'You never know, Orion. My friends always promise to be on time, but they never are,' he says and even though he isn't positive about this friends, happiness can be recognised in his voice.

'Are your friends usually on time?' He holds the door open for me. Should I tell him that I don't have friends, or would he think I'm weird? I don't want him to hate me already. Let's keep things neutral and vague. Maybe I can tell him when we've established a friendship.

'Eh, no… Sometimes?' my answer sounds more like a question, but he doesn't notice, fortunately. We sit down at one of the tables and dump our stuff on another table. He takes out a notebook and pen and writes down ' _Christmas shopping list :)_ '.

Cal Price, he's special, if you just look at him from the right angle. He has brown hair, but not regular brown, a special brown. A kind of brown that turns to all kinds of brown when the sun shines on it. His locks of hair fall down his face in those cute, kind of shaggy bangs that cover half of his eyes. His eyes, oh don't even let me start on his eyes. They are like magical portals in the most beautiful shades of dark blue. I could stare at them all day, if he'd let me. He also has a southern accent, a lot of people get annoyed by it, but I don't. Although what I really like about Cal is that he is openly bi and I admire him for that. I'm gay and terrified of coming out of the closet. I like it here, it's my safe place.

'Alright, let's get started. What do we need?' I get snapped out of my trance by Cal.

'Oh, yeah... What do we need?' I ask him.

'We can start with trees, we need at least a couple of them. Like, maybe, three? Two for in the cafeteria and a big one for outside. Agreed?' Cal asks me and I give him a quick nod as an answer. 'Then decorations. We need a lot of them. We have to make sure we buy plastic ornaments instead of the glass ones. Some people here can be a bit… clumsy.'

I let out a laugh as I remember last year, one of his friends dropped a whole tray of glass ornaments and it would've costed the school so much money to replace them that we didn't have any ornaments that year. The tree was very bald and looked so sad.

'Maybe we can decorate the hallways with those lights you put in the Christmas tree, to spread the Christmas vibe through the whole school,' I suggest. Cal seems to think about it before nodding his head and smiling.

'Very good idea Orion, let's do it.'

I feel myself blushing and I try to shake it off, but I simply just can't. Cal continues suggesting other ideas and sometimes I do too, but it's mostly Cal. I feel myself getting distracted by his appearance over and over again, but I can't help it. I hope he doesn't notice it though.

'Same time tomorrow?' he asks me when we exit the classroom. We spent almost the whole lunch break talking and laughing, I would love to do it again. We decided to go shopping this weekend since the school gave us a budget to buy all the Christmas things we need.

'Yeah, let's do that,' I smile at him. He returns the smile and walks off towards the cafeteria, probably to catch up with his friends before the next period starts. I really hoped he'd stay with me for the rest of lunch break, but I guess that's overdone since he already spent a good amount of his time with me. I eventually make my way back to my locker and wait for the next lesson to start, already looking forward to tomorrow.

…

The following days we spent a lot of time together in the music room, either planning the Christmas decoration or just hanging out, like friends. Unfortunately, as soon as the bell rings our friendship is over and Cal continues making jokes with his 'actual' friends. I really hoped we'd be friends outside of the music room, but apparently I'm not 'cool' enough for that.

'There you are!'

I turn around and see Cal walking towards me, a tiny wallet in his one hand and with his other hand he's pushing the cart. We got money from the school to do the Christmas shopping, we already got our trees yesterday afternoon and now we're going to get the remaining decorations.

'I figured we could go to some local shops in the mall nearby. If we don't have everything we need after then, we can drive out to the city and buy the remaining stuff there.' Cal puts his hand in it's pocket to grab a list. He hands it to me. 'This is the list we made together.'

'Thanks,' I tell him. I take the list from him and our hands touch for a moment. Quickly I pull back my hand and look at the list. Everything we need is listed in Cal's delicate handwriting, boyish but neat.

'The mall is nearby, so we can walk,' he says. I agree and we start walking to the mall together. The walk itself is kind of awkward. We both don't know what we could talk about.

'So… Do you celebrate Christmas at home?' I ask him, to stay within the Christmas spirit.

'Yes, I do!' Cal answers. He sounds excited.

'Sounds like you really like Christmas,' I say.

'Oh, I love Christmas! It is by far my favourite holiday. I like everything about it, the food, presents, but also the time I get to spend with my family. My sister is at college and only comes home for the holidays. My dad is on a lot of business trips most of the time, so I don't see him often too. Christmas is the one day I am sure we are all together.' He stops talking and lets out a little sigh. 'One day the family hangs out together and one day my friends and I hang out together. Maybe you can come too this year? I mean, only if you want, of course.' He chuckles nervously and I see he has his eyes on his shoes.

'Yes! I would love to come!' I say, maybe a bit too excited. I fix my voice. 'At least, if your friends don't mind.'

'They won't mind, I'm sure. The more the merrier, right?' Cal looks at me and smiles.

I nod and smile back. 'Thanks, Cal. I appreciate it.' I look up. 'We're here,' I say, gesturing at the mall.

'Alright,' Cal says. 'Maybe we can get something to drink first, my treat.'

'Oh, that's not necessary,' I tell him.

'I insist,' he answers.

'Alright, then.' I laugh a little.

Two drinks later we walk out of the little café, searching for shops selling Christmas decorations, for a low price. We find a shop with one of those miniature Christmas villages in the shop window and go inside. We enter the shop and a bell above our heads rings, notifying the shop owner someone entered.

'Can I help you?' a deep and old sounding voice asks. A man comes walking from the back of the store toward us.

'We are looking for some Christmas decorations, not too expensive,' Cal says.

'Ah, two young lovers spending their first Christmas together,' the man says smiling.

'Oh, no sir. We are… friends. We are buying Christmas decorations for our school,' I say quickly. I feel my cheeks getting red. Cal laughs awkwardly but doesn't deny anything. Maybe he likes the idea as much as I do?

The man apologies and shows us where we can find the ornaments and returns to his desk at the front of the store. Cal grabs random boxes and looks at the ornaments inside.

'Maybe we can do one theme per tree, for example one gold, one red and one blue. Then we can add silver to all of them, that way we only have to buy a few boxes per tree and have more money for the Christmas lights?' Cal suggest while showing me a box of gold ornaments and a box of red ornaments. His throws his famous grin in what makes me agree without thinking and immediately I grab a box of silver ornaments.

The friendly man from earlier brings us a few baskets in which we put the ornaments and then he points us to the Christmas lights' section of the store. While walking over there we make small talk and I find myself really enjoying my time spend with Cal. I would love to have him as a permanent friend, or even more.

Cal grabs the boxes that contain the most meters of white Christmas lights and we carry everything to the cash register. Cal pays and we leave the store.

'You know Orion, you're fun to hang out with. Maybe we can go to the Christmas fair?' he asks me while giving me a friendly nudge. 'My other friends will be there too"

I smile the biggest smile that I've ever smiled and nod my head repeatedly, I would absolutely love to do that.

…..

Cal and I are unpacking all the bags with the Christmas decorations. I gently put the boxes with the ornaments on an empty cafeteria table.

I get the Christmas lights from a red and white bag and plug them in to see if they work. 'They are all working,' I say and unplug them. 'Are we just going around the tree with them?' I ask Cal. He nods and picks up a chair. He places it right next to the tree and climbs on it.

'If you hand it to me, I can do the upper part.' He holds out his right hand and I hand him the end of the string.

'Here you go,' I quietly say. Cal puts the Christmas lights around the upper part of the tree. He gets off of the chair and hands the string of lights to me.

'You can do the rest if you'd like,' he says. I nod and start twisting the lights around the lower part of the tree.

'We could start with blue and silver for this tree?' Cal suggests.

I nod. 'Great plan,' I respond and search for the box with the blue ornaments. When I find it, I put it in front of the other boxes, so we can reach it easier.

'The honour of the first ornament goes to you,' Cal says with a smile. He opens the box, picks out an ornament and hands it to me.

I pull over a chair next to the tree so I can stand on it. I pick a twig close to the top and carefully hang the ornament there. Cal sheers and picks up an ornament himself and hangs it on the other side, around the middle.

'I'll give you more so you can stay on the chair,' Cal smiles kindly and gives me one of the boxes. 'I'll do around eye height.'

He disappears from view and I continue to hang ornaments in the tree. I decide to put one almost at the top, just under where the tree topper shaped like a star will be. I gently lean forward and try to balance myself on one leg. I reach out and carefully hang the ornament on the twig, but when I move back to stand om my chair again I notice that my sleeve is stuck on another twig. I try to get it to let go, but the twig is attached to my sleeve just like my brother is attached to his tablet, you can't get them apart. I lean forward hoping that it will help, but I lose my balance and everything seems to move in slow-motion.

'Watch out!' I scream at Cal as I feel my body come in contact with the tree. He jumps to the side but it is too late, the tree captures his legs and his body falls to the ground, but luckily not under the tree. I try to jump of the tree, but that only results in me falling on top of Cal.

Then my lips touch Calls.

Taken by surprise, I immediately detach my lips from his and look into his eyes, afraid to see him look at me in disgust, but before I even get the chance to say something he swings his arm around my shoulder and reattaches our lips, full on kissing me. Then, out of nowhere, he pushes me off of him. I quickly get up and try to move the tree. I hold out my hand for Cal, so he can get up too, but he pushes it away.

'I have girlfriend!' Cal yells. He seems mad.

'You have a girlfriend?' I ask confused. 'But you asked me out to the Christmas fair!'

'I didn't ask you out! I just thought you were lonely and could use company of me and my friends. In a _friendly_ way, because you are fun to hang out with. But I was mistaken. I should have listened to my friends, my _real_ friends.' Cal angrily storms out, leaving me behind, sad and confused.

After that I continue to decorate the trees on my own, but it's a lot less fun without Call here.

In the following weeks I try to contact him, but he just ignores me. After a couple of weeks I get a visit from an angry girl, complaining to me about how I kissed her boyfriend. She tells me to leave her boyfriend alone and if I won't, his friends know where I live. After her outburst, she walks away.

And I realise I'll never see Cal Price again.


End file.
